All to help the league’s 32 teams figure out which players they might want to select, or avoid, in the May 8-10 entry draft.

The so-called “Underwear Olympics” refer to the athleticism and positional drills that players — dressed in tight-fitting athletic tops and shorts — run through from Friday through Tuesday at Lucas Oil Stadium.

That’s just a small part of what goes on here.

Off the field, invited players are subjected to hospital pre-exams & X-rays, thorough medicals, psychological testing and 15-minute interviews with interested teams. Players also take questions from the press, either in news conferences or roundtable interview sessions.

This year’s drop-everything-and-run pressers include those on Friday for the widely perceived Top Three quarterbacks — Louisville’s Teddy Bridgewater, Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel and Central Florida’s Blake Bortles — as well as Saturday’s for Michael Sam, the Missouri linebacker who last week announced he is gay.

Beyond the rookies-to-be, team news pours out of the combine. That’s because most head coaches and many GMs hold news conferences, and because hundreds of NFL beat writers keep bumping into coaches, scouts and other front-office types at practically every late-night turn in downtown Indy.

Joe Philbin of the Miami Dolphins originally was among eight head coaches not scheduled to hold a news conference. Late Wednesday night, however, he was hastily added to kick off the parade of 15-minute coach/GM news conferences.

Philbin will be grilled about the investigation into the Dolphins’ bullying scandal and the team's firing Wednesday night of O-line coach Jim Turner.

And what will new Cleveland Browns head coach Mike Pettine have to say about the firing by owner Jimmy Haslam of the two men who hired him just a few weeks ago, Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi? We’ll find out Saturday morning.

Meantime, the NFL’s competition committee holds pivotal meetings to discuss potential changes to playing rules (on the field) and by-laws (off the field).

And because all player agents are here — to attend their own annual meeting — many will meet face-to-face with GMs to open, or continue, discussions on whether to re-sign the hundreds of players set to become free agents on March 11.